POFO Anything Goes Thread. ((Warning do not enter if you can't handle fire))

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The founding fathers put the electoral college into place because they were scared as **** of the people. As wealthy and well educated landowners who largely despised the common man, they wanted a buffer zone in case the people elected someone they found completely objectionable. So they created the concept of electors -- presuming the electors would be wealthy landowners like they were -- and gave those electors the ability to vote for whomever they wanted no matter what the state they came from had done.

That was the idea, anyway. I only know of one instance -- there might be others -- of an elector changing his vote, and that was when James Monroe ran the table and won every state. One elector felt that only Washington should win every vote so he defied his state and voted for the other guy. To this day I'm pretty sure only Washington has won every elector.

Anyway, yeah. It's a stupid system, and in my view has always been one. Among other things, it overvalues the small states, since every state -- no matter how small -- gets at least three electoral votes. And it renders huge swaths of the country irrelevant, and therefore ignored, every presidential election cycle.

This is all true, but it does make the small states have some say in who the President is. Otherwise, New York and LA are basically imposing their will on the rest of the country. The system is still ****ed up, but I'm more concerned about how you're considered unelectable if you don't win Iowa or New Hampshire in the primaries than this.

This is all true, but it does make the small states have some say in who the President is. Otherwise, New York and LA are basically imposing their will on the rest of the country.

Imposing their will? Let's just go to a straight up and down popular vote. Every person in every state gets an equal say. As it is, a vote in Wyoming is worth 300+ percent of an average vote relative to the electoral college while a vote in California or Texas is only worth in the low 80s of an average vote. I find it hard to see a way in which that's fair.

One person. One vote. May the best man win. No more of this haranguing over how 10,000 people in Ohio get to decide who the next president is. It's ridiculous.

The system is still ****ed up, but I'm more concerned about how you're considered unelectable if you don't win Iowa or New Hampshire in the primaries than this.

This I agree with. I'm not sure how to fix it but it's a ridiculous system, especially since both states are like 99% white.

The founding fathers put the electoral college into place because they were scared as **** of the people. As wealthy and well educated landowners who largely despised the common man, they wanted a buffer zone in case the people elected someone they found completely objectionable. So they created the concept of electors -- presuming the electors would be wealthy landowners like they were -- and gave those electors the ability to vote for whomever they wanted no matter what the state they came from had done.

That was the idea, anyway. I only know of one instance -- there might be others -- of an elector changing his vote, and that was when James Monroe ran the table and won every state. One elector felt that only Washington should win every vote so he defied his state and voted for the other guy. To this day I'm pretty sure only Washington has won every elector.

Anyway, yeah. It's a stupid system, and in my view has always been one. Among other things, it overvalues the small states, since every state -- no matter how small -- gets at least three electoral votes. And it renders huge swaths of the country irrelevant, and therefore ignored, every presidential election cycle.

and there in lies the difference between a republic (the Untied States) and a Democracy.